


Doomed Kiss

by theRadioStarr



Series: Tumblr Drabbles and One-Shots [9]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fate & Destiny, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 19:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5345075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theRadioStarr/pseuds/theRadioStarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted by @nothisis-ridiculous on Tumblr: a doomed kiss, for Lupa and Cullen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doomed Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> This was written well before Trespasser came out. Potential vague spoilers for the ending of Capitolina Lupa.

_“You can’t go!” Cullen shouted. He was angry - of course he was angry. “The children need their mother, and I need my wife!”_

_“Cullen-”  
_

_“Please,” he begged. “Please, there must be a way. Some other way than this,_ please _, don’t leave.”_

_Lupa sighed. “Cullen, I have to. I warned you that this day would come, sooner or later. And we’re too old now for me to be optimistic about the outcome-”_

_“Don’t say that,” he growled at her, grabbing an arm and pulling her close. “I have to believe you can at least come back. Why can’t I go with you?”  
_

_“Because the children are old enough to live without one of us, but not both,” Lupa reminded him.  
_

_“Then let me go.”  
_

_Lupa pulled back to look at him. Cullen was pretty, once, but age had grizzled him; now he was rugged and handsome, his golden hair riddled with silver and lines permanently etched into his skin. She had white hairs and wrinkles of her own - the stress of raising two children was evident to any who looked at them, but they still gazed at each other as if they had fallen in love just yesterday, even after all the years._

_Lupa took time to commit the sight of it on Cullen’s face to memory - she didn’t need to, but she tried to, anyway, just in case, as she answered him._

_“It has to be me, Cullen. Just as it’s always been.”  
_

_His shoulders slumped, and Lupa stood on her toes for one last kiss. She memorized that, too: the way their lips pressed together with finality, the way the tip of Cullen’s nose dug into her tattoed cheek, the tears that started leaking from his eyes as they slid onto her face, mingling with her own._

_He was reluctant to let her go, but he did, finally. “Even if I don’t return,” Lupa whispered to him, “I will find you again. Remember our vows.”_

_“’In this life and the next,’” he choked out.  
_

_Lupa nodded gravely. “Ar lath, da’mi.”_

* * *

Lupa shivered against the cold, and pulled Cullen’s fur-lined mantle a little closer around her shoulders. She stood with Romulus on the edge of a daunting, ancient wood, her eyes closed as she remembered their last night together with painful longing. 

She opened her eyes as a chill crawled up her spine, and met the sight of six glowing red eyes. 

_In this life and the next,_  she thought to herself, and she stepped under the forest canopy to meet her fate. 


End file.
